All Aboard! Amazon's return to glory

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Amazon.com's message boards have always been home to feisty crowds. Add a little news and a 20 percent pop into the mix and the hive really starts buzzing.

After Amazon
AMZN, +0.18%
announced its foray into the "cyber-mall" business, the stock rallied and the bulls and bears were at it again. See related story.

On The Motley Fool, Lensman made his position clear: "Is Amazon a great company or what. Bears stand dumbfounded, mouths gaped open, arms akimbo, eyes like whirlygigs. Bezos and Amazon continue to show their strengths." And Labrador panted his bullish outlook on Silicon Investor: "This should bring tremendous revenue (and finally income!!) to Amazon, and make it the dominant shopping site -- they have the customer base, the name, and the talented management. Hold you shares, we'll see a ride over the next couple weeks."

As usual, the most boisterous bunch used Yahoo's boards to both slam and praise the company. AnotherThinker applauded Amazon's move: "Today's announcement is a great news for the longs. It is a step leading to the real success. The major concern of shopping online is fraud. Now customers could shop online with confidence and know that they are in good hands. I believe many companies, especially small ones, will come and sell their products to the more than 10 million registered shoppers of Amazon.com.

And Chkpfbeliever saw the run continuing: "The new service will be launched tomorrow, and you bet AMZN will make some good PR on this. Then we have Oprah's auction on Oct 2. We should make the run until the fed's meeting." Stckwar agreed: "Basically they are opening doors for major revenues with very minimal overhead (on zShops deal) which will bring them to profits much sooner then everyone thinks. This is just a beginning of a major up trend."

Of course, a trip to Amazon's boards would be incomplete without the table pounding of the shorts. Can you sense the sarcasm in Renting's post? -- "Hey, I've got a great way for small retailers to sell their wares on the Internet - it's called the Internet. This is basically AMZN rehashing the 'online mall' concept (big failure) except now all the mall tenants will be dirt poor and most will sell homemade NASCAR merchandise."

FearlessRick won't be going long AMZN any time soon, either: "Amazon is in a desperate phase of their business. Their Z-business initiative is such a radical departure from their core business, that one might infer they have scrapped the branding model for a 'throw it at the wall and see what sticks' spaghetti strategy. Bezos, admittedly, is a superb pitch man, and will always have a job waiting as a barker at any freak show. As his cousin, PT Barnum may have said: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time ...'

Once again, the longs and shorts slugged it out, but Wednesday's feverish pop gave the bulls a decided edge. Whenever Amazon makes a big move in either direction, I highly recommend a visit to the message boards (for entertainment purposes if nothing else.)

Exciting rumors abound

ExciteAtHome shareholders were caught up in rumor euphoria on Wednesday as their stock
ATHM, +2.02%
amassed a 13 percent gain. The message boards bubbled with speculation as investors celebrated what they considered to be a long overdue pop.

On Silicon Investor, the recent rumblings didn't surprise RonD: "I have been posting for months now that AOL and ATHM were going to eventually work something out. It is no mystery that they both have much to gain from an alliance of some sort. While these talks are basically nothing new, maybe this time they can actually reach an agreement." And KailuaBoy took the esoteric approach: "I just heard a rumor that the cow jumped OVER the moon and that a deal between the dish and spoon is a lock."

The excitement was palpable on Yahoo as Cheapnotfree cheered, "Something big must be happening to suddenly get this much interest, and I am holding long. Momentum is a wonderful thing if you are long on this one." And Maddogtrader remained lukewarm about the possibilities: "AOL/ATHM should be a formidable force. Still I wish ATHM would stay on it's own, their long term prospects are very good."

Stockmanager didn't hang all his hopes on the possible deal: "Worst case is that the rumor is not true ... ATHM is still an outstanding company. The stock would drop a couple of points, but that's it. Upside is much higher, than the downside is lower."

The rumors continued to swirl. Will there be some significant news hitting the tape any time soon? Judging from the stock price and message board sentiment, anything's possible. Stay tuned.

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